2022/23 Frank Lampard

Status
Not open for further replies.
the clubs greatest gift to me as I pile on the weight and couch-potato my way towards my 70’s, is to remove the wild cardiac palpitations each time we concede a corner or free kick. I am borderline chilled now when we concede them, my straining arteries cannot thank Everton enough!
We’re deffo getting better at them now we need to learn how to not concede so many.

Last season a corner felt like a penalty to the opposition
 
What I love about this team is that literally everybody in the media is still convinced we're absolute garbage due to our form last season, playing 5 games without a striker and the deep rooted media bias against our manager.

Even stats based coverage like Tifo seem to be convinced we're crap at defending despite the numbers showing otherwise. 6 unbeaten, only conceded more than one goal once. Long may it continue.
 
What I love about this team is that literally everybody in the media is still convinced we're absolute garbage due to our form last season, playing 5 games without a striker and the deep rooted media bias against our manager.

Even stats based coverage like Tifo seem to be convinced we're crap at defending despite the numbers showing otherwise. 6 unbeaten, only conceded more than one goal once. Long may it continue.
Deep rooted bias against Lampard??, Lampard, like Brucey is the media lovey, can't do nothing wrong, always beenthat way.
 

Really? Is that why every newspaper can't wait for him to get sacked? The Guardian minute by minute AND match report both questioned if he was a premier league level coach *after* a win that took his side to 5 games unbeaten.
Sacked on a run of bad results , sure they no worse against the other teams struggling, Frank the Media darling especially in London.
 

The corner count is bizarre as we seem to give them away in clusters of 4/5 at a time. But we do seem to be getting our heads onto them a lot more and maybe they're backing themselves to be a lot stronger and more organised so aren't fearing the set pieces as much.

I think the only goal conceded was the Brentford one which was a real howler

I think it's just because we don't take chances with it. We just get it away from the goal even if that's giving away a corner. We have lots of height now to defend corners effectively.

I think @Marius57 is absolutely right. Stopping that ball into the box is the priority, and how it's stopped is immaterial. Perhaps previously there was more emphasis on clearing upfield, but really, if you can stop pretty much every corner by any means, including conceding another one, then that will do.

The odds of any given corner resulting in a goal (from memory, about 3% is the league average I think?) make the risk of conceding another corner manageable. If you have a 97% chance of not conceding by heading a ball out for a corner, then you take it.
 
Some pleasing things - we're looking a fair bit more solid at the back, at the moment only Brighton have conceded fewer than us. The overhaul in central defence and central midfield is pleasing. The signing of Maupay has given us a genuine alternative up front to just being stuck with Rondon in the event of an injury etc. Patterson has given us a new attacking threat on that flank. They're trying to progress the style of play - that's clear, but it'll be a slow process.

Some notes of caution - although our defensive record is good, it's probably fair to say that's been helped by Pickford being in outstanding form and a reasonable slice of luck for a change - We've had shots bounce off our woodwork 3 times in the last 2 games alone. To put numbers on that, we are overperforming our xGA by almost 5 goals, that's more than double anyone else in the league and it's reasonable to assume that won't last forever. Also, even to the naked eye, we lack much goal scoring threat. DCL's return should hopefully help, but you're going to have to hope that goals come from elsewhere in the team and it's hard to see where that might be exactly - Maupay might just about get double figures if he plays enough (although those minutes would likely be mostly at the expense of DCL), Gordon and Gray might chip in with a few, although it's difficult to see either getting double figures. McNeil has never been particularly prolific, so it's tough to rely on any output from him, Iwobi is a man reborn, but that doesn't really extend to much of a goal scoring threat, and then you have whoever his partner in midfield is, likely Onana, so we'll have to hope he has a few goals in him (and there's not enough evidence either way to hazard a guess on that yet)

What I've seen has generally been an improvement on last season so far and, even though West Ham wasn't a great performance, the win is nice to ease any early pressure, but I'm reluctant to get too carried away just yet. The underlying numbers (admittedly not for everyone) aren't much to shout about yet, although I think we'd all agree that the commitment and general performances seem much better.
 
The corner count is bizarre as we seem to give them away in clusters of 4/5 at a time. But we do seem to be getting our heads onto them a lot more and maybe they're backing themselves to be a lot stronger and more organised so aren't fearing the set pieces as much.

I think the only goal conceded was the Brentford one which was a real howler
Think one of the main reasons for the clusters is that defending a corner there's no Everton player on the edge of the box. So when the corner is headed clear it's coming straight back in as a cross or shot and in turn usually deflected or headed out for another corner.
 

Status
Not open for further replies.
Top